Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
If I may--without trying to get in your business--you may wish to not lose sight of the forest for the trees. A book's value is in its content--not how fancy the typography is.
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Yes, I agree -- except when the typography
is, in essence, the content.
Quote:
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So...I'm sure your book would stand alone even if done in Times New Roman, right? Didn't you have some message about doing it in "regular" font, and then putting the blackletter version at the back? Think of it that way for Amazon--your Fire version can have blackletter, even though I personally would not "go" for that--and your other versions will simply be in Caecilia, which is a TNR clone.
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I can only suppose that perhaps you didn't download the earlier sample versions of my epub that I've posted here, or maybe I didn't explain this little project of mine very well -- I don't know, but I suppose the easiest thing is to show you.
I've put this newest "sample" version together just for you, Hitch (and anyone else who might be interested, of course) -- and view it on an iPad, in iBooks, otherwise it's quite likely that the excerpt from the appendix won't display correctly (I'm assuming an iPhone would display it okay, too, but I don't have one so I don't know).
The first part you see are the opening pages (i.e. the "front matter", minus a couple of incidental pages like the table of contents, etc.), including the entire opening "Prologue" to my book. The first, main part of my book is all written like that, in modern English, and the only "fancy" typography I do, really, is for the title/headings. Surely you don't think that's overkill, typographically? And I'm sure you'd agree, too, that the embedded font that I've used for the headings enhances the book's appeal, more than just a plain ol' text face would.
And then I've included the first part of the "Appendix". This appendix, in the complete version of the book, is the
entire work completely re-written in late-Middle English, and typeset (so to speak) in an authentic digitally-reproduced font from that period, complete with all those "long-esses" and a whole variety of ligatures, etc. The "Prologus" that I included here is
the exact same text as you can read in the Prologue (except in late-Middle English, but the wording/phrasing is entirely the same).
See what it is that I'm endeavouring to do here -- I hope? The text for this book I wrote myself, and the transliteration into late-Middle English I also did myself (after a
great deal of research and study on my own), and all the typographic design, "book" design, graphic design and everything else you see represents literally a lifetime of study on my part. This isn't just an ebook that I'm publishing, but one that truly represents "me".
Now, it's truly unfortunate that the appendix only seems to work (correctly) in iBooks, but for the time being that's good enough for me. If at some point I did decide to try to get this out on other platforms, well, I would probably have to resort to just doing that section up in graphic format (as I basically did in this sample for the title page -- or, rather, half-title page -- for the late-Middle English version).
I hope that helps you to understand what it is that I'm trying to accomplish here -- and if you have any comments or suggestions on
that, well, once again I would truly be most appreciative!
And thanks!